Month: November 2023

KARACHI: Eleven people have died after a huge fire erupted in a multi-storey shopping mall on Karachi’s Rashid Minhas Road on Saturday.

Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab has confirmed the number of casualties taking to his X, formerly Twitter, account.

“KMC Fire Department has so far confirmed that there have been 9 casualties in the fire incident,” he wrote, further informing about the number of bodies shifted to different hospitals in the city.

“Search process still continues,” he added in the post.

According to fire brigade officials, nearly 50 people trapped inside the RJ shopping mall on the city’s busy artery have been rescued in the rescue operation involving two snorkels, eight fire tenders and a bowser.

A spokesperson for the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center (JPMC) said they received nine bodies, while a rescue official said one body each was shifted to the Civil Hospital and Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

Officials said that more people are still there and efforts are being made to bring them to safety. The officials added that fire at the shopping centre has been brought under control, while the cooling process is currently underway on one of the floors.

The fire that broke out at around 7am on the second floor engulfed the fourth, fifth and sixth floors of the shopping mall, but it was not clear what caused it.

The injured have been shifted to a nearby healthcare facility for treatment. Six of those injured are in critical condition, officials said.

Rauf Hamid, who was rescued from the building, told Geo News many people are still trapped.

“When the fire broke out, we saved ourselves by rushing towards a safe room. The smoke was so intense that we didn’t understand what was happening.”

CM Baqar takes notice

Sindh Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar has expressed regret over the loss of life in the wake of the deadly fire.

The chief minister has ordered urgent measures to control the fire and has asked for the injured to be provided immediate medical aid.

Action to be taken against those responsible: DC

Karachi Deputy Commissioner (DC) Salim Rajput visited the site and ordered an inquiry into the incident.

“The buildings lacking security arrangements will be sealed. From tomorrow, all the deputy commissioners will collect data on buildings in their areas,” he said, ordering for action to be taken after the collection of records within 30 days.

“Legal action will be taken against those responsible,” he added.

Chief Fire Officer Mubeen Ahmed said the mall’s building has caught fire for the second time. “Two years ago there was a fire in the same building.”

He added that when a fire breaks out in such a building, cutting off the power leads to darkness and people usually panic in such a situation due to which chaos ensues.

“After completion of the rescue operation, it will be known whether fire safety equipment was present or not,” he said, adding that the process of search and rescue is underway inside the mall’s building after the cooling process is completed.

‘No fire extinguishing system’

Karachi Fire Rescue Commander Humayun Khan said the fire was probably caused by a short circuit.

“The shopping centre did not have a fire extinguishing system. Being centrally air-conditioned, there was no way for the air to escape,” he added.

Call centres in the shopping centre, he said, are operational 24 hours a day. “We were successful in rescuing 50 people.”

The Sindh Building Control Authority (SCBA) officials visited the shopping mall affected by the fire.

“The affected shopping centre falls under the jurisdiction of the Faisal Cantonment Board. Its map has not been approved by the Sindh Building Control Authority,” the SCBA official said.

Bilawal aggrieved over loss of lives

Meanwhile, Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari has expressed regret over the fire incident, grieving the loss of precious lives.

The former federal minister has asked to ensure better treatment of injured people. He has also demanded that an immediate investigation be conducted to ensure the prevention of such incidents in the future.

During a joint news conference with the prime ministers of Spain and Belgium in Cairo, Sisi said reviving the process aimed at ending the Israel-Palestinian issue “may not be what is required”.

“The results of this path faltering for 30 years tells us that we must” adopt a different approach, he said.

This would entail “the recognition of the Palestinian state by the international community and bringing it into the United Nations… This would show seriousness,” Sisi added.

 

He pointed to the high civilian death toll in successive Gaza crisis, saying the unrest erupted because the “political horizons for resolving the Palestinian cause always failed” to fulfil the Palestinians’ aspirations.

GAZA: After weeks of death and despair, there were celebrations in parts of Gaza as 39 Palestinians, who were freed from Israeli prisons on Friday, returned to their loved ones on the first day of a hard-fought truce that has brought a pause to Israeli hostilities for the time being.

Under the terms of the four-day truce, 50 women and children are to be released over four days, in return for 150 Palestinian women and children among thousands of detainees in Israeli jails. Israel says the truce could be extended if more prisoners are released at a rate of 10 per day.

But in at least three cases, before the prisoners were released, Israeli police raided their families’ homes in Jerusalem, witnesses said.

“There is no real joy, even this little joy we feel as we wait,” said Sawsan Bkeer, the mother of 24-year-old Palestinian prisoner Marah Bkeer, jailed for eight years in 2015.

In Beitunia, a city near Ramallah in the occupied West Bank, a large crowd, mostly of young men, greeted freed prisoners by cheering, honking car horns and marching in the street carrying Palestinian flags.

“I can’t express how I feel. Thank God,” said 17-year-old Laith Othman, who was detained earlier this year on suspicion of throwing an incendiary device and released on Friday. “The situation inside (prison) is very difficult,” he said as he was carried along the street on someone’s shoulders.

More than 100 more Palestinian prisoners are due to be released over the coming four days and more may be freed if the truce is extended.

Earlier, 24 prisoners were released by Hamas in Gaza, nine hours after guns fell silent for the first time in seven weeks.

The two dozen prisoners included 13 Israelis, 10 Thai citizens and one Filipino, as well as four children accompanied by four family members, and five other elderly women.

They were transferred out of Gaza and handed over to Egyptian authorities at the Rafah border crossing, accompanied by eight staff members of the International Committee of the Red Cross in a four-car convoy.

The Israeli military said the freed prisoners had already been brought to Israel, where they underwent an initial medical assessment.

A source briefed on the negotiations said the release of the Thai workers, who were all men, was unrelated to the truce negotiations and followed a separate track of talks with Hamas mediated by Egypt and Qatar.

Thai Prime Minister Srettha Thavisin said in a social media post that 12 Thai workers had been freed, two more than the figure given by the Qataris, but no reason was given for the discrepancy

US President Joe Biden said Friday’s release of a first group of Hamas prisoners was just a “start” and that there were “real” chances to extend a temporary truce in Gaza.

Speaking to reporters in Nantucket, Massachusetts, where he was spending the Thanksgiving holiday with his family, Biden also said it was time to “renew” work on creating a two-state solution for peace between Israel and the Palestinians.

For the first time in seven weeks, no big bombings, artillery strikes or rocket attacks were reported, although Hamas and Israel both accused each other of sporadic shootings and other violations.

However, Tel Aviv says it will use the four-day lull to prepare the next phase of their operation in the Gaza Strip. “During the days of the truce, the IDF will complete its preparation and readiness for the next stages of the war,” Rear Admiral Daniel Hagari told a briefing.

Withdrawal from Al-Shifa

Meanwhile, Israeli forces withdrew from Gaza’s largest hospital Al-Shifa on Friday, the health ministry said.

The Israeli military raided Al-Shifa last week, many of the estimated 2,300 patients, staff and displaced civilians sheltering in the Al-Shifa complex have been evacuated to the south of the Gaza Strip.

But the World Health Organisation said it was still “extremely concerned” about the safety of the estimated 100 patients and health workers remaining at Al-Shifa, spokesman Christian Lindmeier said.

Health ministry spokesman Ashraf al-Qudra said the Israeli military had withdrawn but the people remaining at Al-Shifa were in a battered complex whose “main generator is destroyed along with numerous buildings”.

“We’re working on further evacuations from hospitals as soon as possible,” said Lindmeier, with recent Israeli operations focusing on the Indonesian Hospital.

Lindmeier said the latest evacuation convoy had left Al-Shifa with “73 severely ill or injured patients” including some in need of critical care.

“We hope that this humanitarian pause leads to a longer term humanitarian ceasefire for the benefit of the people of Gaza, Israel and beyond,” said Jens Laerke, spokesman for the UN humanitarian agency OCHA.

He described the mission as a “full-fledged exercise in self defence”.

North Korea fired a rocket believed to contain the spy satellite on Tuesday.

It claimed it was a success but South Korea said it was too soon to tell if the satellite is functioning, after two previous launches failed.

Mr Kim appeared at a reception of space scientists and technicians on Thursday with his wife Ri Sol Ju and, daughter, Kim Ju Ae, according to the state-run Korean Central News Agency (KCNA).

He said the launch “had propelled the country into a new era of space power”, KCNA said.

And it added that Mr Kim said “the possession of reconnaissance satellite is a full-fledged exercise of the right to self-defence”.

North Korea’s premier Kim Tok Hun said the satellite would give their military the capacity to strike the whole world.

Developing a functioning spy satellite is a major part of North Korea’s five-year military plan – and the technology could in theory enable Pyongyang to monitor the movement of US and South Korean troops and weapons on the Korean Peninsula, allowing it to spot incoming threats.

A few hours after Tuesday’s launch, North Korean state media claimed that they were already reviewing images of US military bases in Guam.

The launch has been strongly condemned by the UN as well as other countries including the US and Japan.

And it has sparked a row with South Korea, who said it believed the North received help from Russia.

The latest launch followed Mr Kim’s rare trip to Russia in September, when President Vladimir Putin offered Pyongyang help to build satellites.

North Korea claims successful launch of spy satellite
S Korea suspends parts of military deal with North
North Korea fully suspends military pact with South
Pyongyang’s launch of the satellite called “Malligyong-1” was its third attempt after two attempts had failed in May and August.

South Korea confirmed that the launch was successful but said it was too early to determine if the satellite was functioning as claimed by the North.

South Korea partially suspended a five-year-old military accord with the North, after Pyongyang’s launch of the satellite on Tuesday.

Pyongyang responded by threatening to suspend the deal in full, adding that it “will never be bound” by the agreement again.